tacles. I don't pay you at all, sir, except at rare intervals
and in moments of mental decrepitude. Go at once! Allez! Chassez!
Skoot!"

"But, lieutenant," says Ananias, his black face shining, his even white
teeth all agleam, "Captain Cram stopped in on de way back from stables
to say Glenco 'd sprained his foot and you was to ride de bay colt.
_Please_ get up, suh. Boots and Saddles 'll soun' in ten minutes."

"It won't, but if it does I'll brain the bugler. Tell him so. Tell
Captain Cram he's entirely mistaken: I won't ride the bay colt--nor
Glenco. I'm going driving, sir, with Captain Cram's own team and
road-wagon. Tell _him_ so. Going in forty-five minutes by my watch.
Where is it, sir?"

"It ain't back from de jeweller's, suh, where you done lef' it day
before yist'day; but his boy's hyuh now, suh, wid de bill for las' year.
What shall I tell him?"

"Tell him to go to--quarantine. No! Tell him the fever has broken out
here again, sir, and not to call until ten o'clock next spring,--next
mainspring they put in that watch. Go and get Mr. Merton's watch. Tell
him I'll be sure to overstay in town if he doesn't send it, and then I
can't take him up and introduce him to those ladies from Louisville
to-morrow. Impress that on him, sir, unless he's gone and left it on his
bureau, in which case impress the watch,--the watch, sir, in any case.
No! Stop again, Ananias; _not_ in any case, only in the gold
hunting-case; no other. Now then, vanish!"

"But, lieutenant, 'fo' Gawd, suh, dey'll put you in arrest if you cuts
drill dis time. Cunnle Braxton says to Captain Cram only two days ago,
suh, dat----"

But here a white arm shot out from a canopy of mosquito-netting, and
first a boot-jack, then a slipper, then a heavy top-boot, came whizzing
past the darky's dodging head, and, finding expostulation vain, that
faithful servitor bolted out in search of some ally more potent, and
found one, though not the one he sought or desired, just entering the
adjoining room.

A big fellow, too,--too big, in fact, to be seen wearing, as was the
fashion in the sixties, the shell jacket of the light artillery. He had
a full round body, and a full round ruddy face, and a little round
visorless cap cocked on one side of a round bullet head, not very full
of brains, perhaps, yet reputed to be fairly stocked with what is termed
"horse sense." His bulky legs were thrust deep in long boots, and
ornamented, so far as the skin-tight breeches